There be gold in them hills!

A new gold mine has been established, okay not a traditional one, but it is yellow at least! “Pokemon Go” has started a global craze similar to what we saw with games like “Angry Birds” and “Candy Crush”. It’s not uncommon to see people randomly walking around the streets or parks with their phones held up looking for monsters! So where is the gold in that you ask? Well how about the 200 million USD of Net Income that Nintendo saw from the game in just the month of July and this was even before the game opened up into some of the biggest gaming markets like China and Korea!

But this blog is not about Nintendo’s success – that is pretty evident. What I am more interested in is the amazing appearance of the ecosystem around “Pokemon Go”, which is very similar to the pop- up towns that appeared at a new gold rush location. The game itself has been running for roughly three months and, in that time, we now have dating applications so as you can hunt monsters with that someone special (seriously!), or get access to maps showing key locations where monsters hang out and even go to online stores where you can buy Pokemon clothing so you stand out when hunting for monsters. I didn’t realise until my kids were running around an airport that apparently Pokemon monsters are trying to now even board planes! 

We have truly moved into a digital era, one where entrepreneurial individuals are ready to respond to the latest craze and set up their own version of a bar, tailor, supply store or even more mature entertainment. Our world has clearly shifted from the physical to the virtual and these pop up ecosystems are testament to that. What is interesting though is that unlike the gold mining towns of old, these digital pop-up ecosystems will disappear faster and leave almost no evidence that they even existed. This is because the technology of our era has caught up with our childlike behaviour when it comes to our digital lives.

I think Bill Connolly said it best with “I want it now, I want it yesterday and stay awake because I will change what I want tomorrow!” We have always wanted immediacy and, as adults, we grow to accept and understand we can’t always have what we want. However, the digital world changed that with information, collaboration, games and shopping. Hence businesses have always been keen on capturing this market, but much like a child, our interests tend to be brief before we will move on with something else (don’t believe me? Well did you know the average use of an application you download is only 4-5 days? – brief indeed).

For businesses to be able to leverage this opportunity they need infrastructure to be available to spin up and spin down. They also need access to high speed connectivity to ensure their temporary services are always accessible and lastly they need to access both of these elements all over the world in order to ensure they benefit from the breadth of interest these opportunities bring albeit briefly.

Fortunately, our word has never been more connected and as such these pop up businesses can thrive profitably for short periods of time and then quickly pull back on the throttle when interest starts to wane. Of course there is no guarantee of success with these pop up businesses, but because of the elastic availability and pay-as-you-use commercial engagements, they can afford to fail and that confidence can help to increase a willingness to experiment with different types of services. Imagine if you tried to do that in a gold rush town – how many unused buildings or wasted supplies thrown out the back of the building as they tried to forget what hadn’t worked!

In today’s day and age it is all about the here and the now, and I believe it will become increasingly common to see businesses where there purpose is to build capability akin to running a short term project. Their success will also be determined by how long they can ride the coat tails of disruptive market developments by being agile and relevant and equally how many of these initiatives they can run in parallel before scale becomes a burden to their agility. The digital boom town has arrived and I am sure it won’t be long before we start seeing a map of the digital gold mines that exist in our newly created digital world to provide budding entrepreneurs with directions on how to find the nearest pop up town and set up their own shop. Ultimately, where there is gold, there is business to be done – albeit in the virtual hills!

Are we ready for Government 3.0?

I always enjoy writing about what I am seeing in our increasingly technology influenced world. I am sure you would agree that some of the things are exciting and have improved our way of life while others a little less so. This blog explores a subject that urgently needs to be examined and I believe, action needs to be taken, before there becomes a gaping hole in the way we live our lives.  I know dramatic, but read on.

As our world becomes more “technologically digital”, the role of government needs to evolve. Of course some of you will say governments are already on that journey, you only have to look at their efforts to have twitter accounts or even a Facebook page (yes they exist and some are quite scary!) to see they are at least trying!  OK fine, I’ll give you that, they are evolving.  But let’s call this “Government 2.0” and define it as: “governments providing online services, as well as access to, information”. What they really need though, is to evolve to the next stage, in the digital world and begin to understand (and hopefully take action) there will be laws that need to be either written or rewritten to support this evolution. Easier said than done, right?

Think for a moment about how quickly we see new innovation compared to what it was 10 or 20 years ago.  Today the rate of technological change means that governments are struggling to keep up. Ultimately this has led to, or will eventually lead to, governments establishing new ministries (state departments) focused on technology. Now, I am not talking about evolving a telecom regulator, I am referring to the need for dedicated ministries (not a shared government portfolio) focused on protecting businesses, people and even government from digital conflicts or disasters. This requires a rethink of existing laws, policies, education and state run programs. Admittedly, some governments have started down this path, but think about the Secretary of State, or the Secretary for National Security, I believe it is time to introduce the Secretary of Technology as a core government department to address the broader role Technology is playing in our daily lives today.

Here’s a thought for you - at the rate of change, to our digital world, we are led by world leaders, Supreme Court judges and others who have not been born during the digital age – not a bad thing but does place them at a disadvantage.  Also bear in mind that governments have attempted to influence the digital world on their terms by either blocking out online information, ignoring it, or feebly attempting to engage through casual posts, etc. only to become very upset that someone has the audacity to respond to something they have posted negatively, as if their view is beyond repute (?). Now I want you to consider a Google vs. Apple court case going to the Supreme Court in the US for resolution. How do you think this will play out?

Trust me when I say that my aim here is NOT politics.  I have no political stance other than to have you, as my reader, appreciate that we do need to evolve our thinking. In fact, I think we need Governments to evolve to a 3.0 operating environment similar in a way that we now see the web moving into a Web 3.0 iteration. Consider for a moment the briefings that government panels have on natural resource availability, the environment, national security, etc.  Shouldn’t there be one for technology updates? Our technological world is evolving in months now not years, and soon I expect that will be weeks. Consider thumb print technology identification, commercial air drones, self driving cars, etc. all of which are already and will quickly become common place. Do our air and road laws need to change? Does Personal security need to be driven more by governments or global organizations to ensure standards for personal devices?

Don’t get me wrong, governments are attempting at different levels to stay ahead of this but, as an example, do you think blocking an IP address to protect citizens from inappropriate content is enough? Should people have the choice to have content removed if they don’t like it? Or chase down that disruptive influence? Think about recent government interventions when they have simply “disconnected” the web…really?  We all know astute web users who can find alternative ways to stay in touch with the outside world, through satellite, mobile phone, remote vpn’s, etc.

Now, it is not all doom and gloom. I have been impressed (scary but true) with the Californian state government empowering individuals to request their social media presence be deleted when they reach 18; or in Europe where the European Union has legalized the right to request that search results be removed by those who perceive their privacy has been or will be breached. Lastly the growing debate around Data Sovereignty is seeing some exciting discussions led by governments as to hat policies and laws are now required. Of course these are great steps, but are we just painting over the cracks. There is a bigger issue forming and that is the need for awareness and education. This is going to be critical if we are all going to live in this digital world. Would we need the Californian law if our children and even us, as adults for that matter, were taught the power of the net and the responsibilities for self that go with it?

We need to educate the public and create the appropriate laws for things like:  stalking someone through the web.  Does this have the same legal implications as it does in the real world?  In both cases it certainly has the same damaging emotional toll on the victim.  How about defamation? This is something we are familiar with in print media, but it is more so now on the web than ever before – especially in Social media circles. What if children and adults understood that all acts online were actually treated in the same way as if they were in the real world? (Imagine having to ask permission from your friends each time you wanted to share something of theirs on the web … look out Facebook!)

I do hope this has given you some food for thought and I hope that there are some government types or thought leader types out there who will contribute to this discussion.  I would love to hear about a government who has formed a Technology Ministry or department that is able to consider the rapid evolution of technology, the increasing role it has in our daily lives and the need to protect and educate everyone on what is and isn’t appropriate. Of course some will say the web is an open place and should be self regulated, however we must always bear in mind not everyone has the same level of technology understanding and education.  To ensure the web is a part of everyone’s life, we need to be able to provide people with the same level of safety and self awareness they have come to know in the real world.  I strongly believe governments and other such institutions need to evolve hence it is not a question of if but more how long we will have to wait for Government 3.0.

Time to get out of the box!

Mobile Operators are at the crossroads of an exciting Journey. They need to choose to become the best of breed connectivity player delivering Internet access, Talk and text services, OR become a next generation services provider delivering multi-media and end user applications. Now I am not here to pass judgement or to say which is better (ok I do have a view), however they must choose a path as trying to dance between the two will only cause increasing prioritization challenges and conflicts of investment strategies. My intent with this article is to open the eyes of operators so that they may see an opportunity before them.

In order to move forward Mobile Operators need to get back to what they were known for, when Mobile Networks were the next best thing driving innovation and service creation.  Remember when we couldn't send more than 30 characters in a message, or the first time you viewed the Internet through your mobile? I mean, come on, how cool was that! The status of Mobile Networks going “All IP” has finally arrived and hence a new horizon has been reached!  So, what are we going to do differently?

Despite a growing view that Over the Top (OTT) players “own the customer relationship”, I suggest you ask yourself this simple question:  “Who do you call when you can’t access certain content or make a Skype call or even view your Google maps?”…. The majority of us first call our mobile operator, with a common statement of “Hey, I can’t access my Apps, Content, or speak to my family whilst trying to avoid your expensive long distance charges!” In my view, if the operator is being asked to be accountable, then shouldn’t they leverage the role as a differentiator as well? Operators have a great chance to remove demarcations and show their customers a true value service, where predictability in end user costs are provided – therefore reducing bill shock when accessing high bandwidth services; and where customers can choose what type of content they want.

I believe, there are some very exciting services that Mobile Operators should consider, if they haven’t already, offering to their customers:

·         Media:  This is the most obvious avenue, given Mobile networks are moving to an all IP network, they can now prioritize and effectively optimize traffic to balance quality of experience whilst minimizing loads on the network to minimize impact on other customers. There are equally exciting opportunities to work with local content providers and/or broadcasters. Operators provide significant value in that they can provide very detailed information on the profile of the individual watching the content (no this is not about selling information, but about profiling a customer base to drive demand and more importantly relevance of advertisements and content to the end user. This is something broadcasters fail to do today when we are watching on our TV’s at home, Yes Broadcaster and Content providers can predict, based on time of day but that is really it, to have the opportunity to know , who is watching what type of content and when would increase the granularity and market insights. This means broadcaster could tell their advertisers that they could increase the profiling of viewers for specific shows and ultimately realize a better ROI for their programming.

·         Applications: Yes we all know the demand and “stores” of applications are expanding rapidly, however, they remain tied to specific Operating System stores and as such, remain difficult to share amongst friends with different operating systems. Mobile Operators are quite unique in that they don’t care if a customer prefers an Iphone over an Android, or Nokia above Blackberry (hey it could happen). Therefore, consider an application store, which is run by the Operator, where customers are able to recommend applications to friends, create apps and share them across a broader market without worrying what Operating System their application is based on or what type of device their friends choose to use.  And because of this, they then see the relevance and value of a Operator enabled store that much faster! Equally, local hosting of the applications improves customer experience for the application owner – especially for the growing number of high bandwidth demanding services, as well as localization of Internet traffic. For Application developers, in local markets, it is always a choice of what app store do you start hosting your application on. Yet, mobile operators have an opportunity to help the application developer access multiple Operating Systems and, at the same time, promote their particular application to a broader audience. The value for the operator, as mentioned earlier, comes in optimization of those access applications across their “all IP” mobile network and I would suggest sharing the advertising monetization with the app developer.

·         Service Bundling: Historically we have looked at bundles based on a mobile device, phone line and access to the Internet. But, these days, all of these elements are a given. Why not change this to become: access your top three social media pages, favourite content sources and/or applications? By collecting all of this data, Mobile Operators can then share with the customer what other content or apps may be of interest based on similar profiles without divulging personal data! Equally in understanding these preferences for customers operators can start to prioritize or optimize traffic to ensure customers receive an exciting experience whilst also working with the content or service owner to consider hosting high demand services with the operator to reduce overseas Internet expense and improve performance.

·         Advertising: This has become a fact of life, whether you like it or not, it is here to stay. We see ads everywhere on line and where the Mobile Operator can add value, is to use this to help the customer gain access to content and services at a lower cost. Before you skip past this idea, consider for a moment an option to buy into Ad categories which are of relevance to you and use these as credits to offset your new profile based service bundles or expand your bundle to other services at little or no extra cost. We have tended to forget that the Advertisers will consider all avenues to reach their potential customers as long as they are more likely to view the advertising. Let’s face it, if you know the ads being shown are of relevance and then you are more likely to click on the ad. Combine this with basic profile data of Day, Time, location and personal preferences to create the greatest likelihood of interest for both the end customer and the advertiser. in the end it is the operator who is actually facilitating the relationship and making it beneficial to both!

Mobile Operators are at a cross roads, they have the capability to redefine the customer experience through optimization, prioritization and packaging. The “all IP” network means it is much easier to introduce over the top services which could be viewed on laptops, mobiles or tablets (and increasingly TV’s!) The traditional Over the top providers (OTT’s) may become agitated with this approach, however, in my opinion; it is ultimately what we have been missing for some time.  A healthy competition and a realization that mobile operators have more than one choice, when it comes to delivering a content and service rich diversity and high quality customer experience. It is up to the OTT players to excite the operators in how they are going to partner in service creation, customer growth and end to end service assurance. OTT’s have a choice to make as Operators are now in a position to shop around.

Mobile Operators therefore need to identify the role they want to play, build the above capability or identify the partners (not suppliers) who they can work with to achieve the same. However, whatever the decision, the end result MUST be that they take responsibility for the end to end customer experience and that is only possible if they embrace the Over the Top model, recognize that the era of talk and text is moving to all IP and OTT players are increasingly challenging mobile operators for this space. Going all IP means Operators can now leverage the growing standardization that Operating systems for mobile devices have brought us and ultimately it is the OTT’s who have provided the opportunity to Operators to create their own services, or as I like to say perhaps now is the time for Mobile Operators to go “OTT to the OTT!”